A main object of the invention is to constitute a novel fun and exercise interactive peripheral for a digital processing unit such as, for example, a video game console, a computer, or an arcade terminal, making it possible to do interactive sessions of gymnastics of the “stepping” or “step-up” type.
In the prior art, video game peripherals are already known that seek to increase fun and exercise interactions for improved realism when playing video games. Thus, interactive surfboards or other slide boards, or interactive “dance mats” have thus been developed.
An interactive dance mat is generally in the form of a mat made up of various pressure-sensitive surfaces considered as “all or nothing” switches actuated by the feet, the mat being connected to a digital processing unit.
Such mats made up of pressure-sensitive portions and dedicated to video games use are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,837,952 or more recently in European Patents Nos. EP 1 043 746 and EP 1 127 599.
Such mats are described in those documents as being plane surfaces of rectangular shape whose various pressure-sensitive portions, which are also rectangular, are disposed around a surface that is not pressure-sensitive and that is placed in the center of the mat.
When the mat has more than four pressure-sensitive zones, the pressure-sensitive portions are disposed along axes of symmetry of the mat considered as being a rectangular plane surface, namely along its two diagonals and along its two medians.
Dance programs have been developed for operating in preferred manner with such dance mats, but also with conventional game pads. Such a program is described in above-mentioned Patent EP 1 127 599.
The user uses such a mat for interacting with a dance program operating on a digital processing unit having a screen as display means by pressing with the feet on the portions of the mat indicated on the screen by the game.
By pressing with the feet on the various portions of the mat, following sequences and rhythms specific to a given dance game operating on the digital processing unit, the player triggers signals transmitted to the digital processing unit and taken into account by the dance game. The player can then follow genuine choreographies for which an appraisal (correctness of placements of the feet on the pressure-sensitive portions and rhythm of placement of the feet) is indicated to the player as visual and audio feedback by the dance game.
The rest position of the user is the position in the center of the mat in which the user's feet stand on that portion of the mat which is not pressure-sensitive. The position in the center of the mat is not distinguishable by the mat from a position outside said mat since that position is characterized by inactivity of the pressure-sensitive surface making up the mat.
It should be noted that the signage of a dance mat is very similar to the signage of a conventional game pad and that dance videos for home consoles and for dance mats can be played fully with a conventional game pad.
Such dance mats and their associated programs thus make it possible for users to perform interactive dance activities whose corpus of movements is limited to the types of interaction that said mat can sense, namely to movements of the feet on an entirely plane surface having a non-interactive portion at its center.
Furthermore, exercise or fitness accessories are tending to become increasingly interactive. That applies, for example, to an interactive exercise bike that interacts, via the movement of its crankset and of buttons situated on the handles, with games operating on a game console. Similarly, certain rowing machines and treadmill running machines are provided with screens displaying rowing race images or cross-country landscapes.
In the same spirit, U.S. Pat. No. 5,507,708 makes it possible to do “stair climbing” type gymnastics while interacting with a video game machine.
Unfortunately, none of those accessories make it possible to do interactive exercise having the characteristics of stepping type exercise which is characterized by choreography around and on a rectangular block.